Cuomo and Friedman: ‘For America to Live,’ the GOP ‘Has to Die’

In November, CNN host Chris Cuomo openly threatened the lives of Republican lawmakers when he warned: “they are going to lose way more than this election.” He even admitted to “targeting” them. And on Monday’s edition of Prime Time, Cuomo continued down that dangerous road by commiserating with New York Times columnist and Communist China sympathizer Tom Friedman about how “for America to live, this party has to die.”

After plugging Friedman’s book, Cuomo decried how people on the right would call them out for pushing violence. “Of course, just using the word ‘die’ will have the whole righty fringe throwing you under the bus as the real person asking for violence,” he whined.

Cuomo then went off on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (who he described as an illness earlier in the show) for saying that the proper venue to hold former President Trump accountable was in an actual court of law (Click “expand”):

CUOMO: Two have-you-evers and what do they mean? The first have-you-ever, have you ever seen somebody make a political move the way McConnell did in voting to acquit and then following it up with the exact rationale as for why he should have convicted?

FRIEDMAN: Well, Chris, I think everyone has pretty well covered the fact that the hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell was as big as all outdoors.

CUOMO: With no shame, Tom. That’s what I’m saying. No shame. No shame.

“From the very beginning, we’ve had a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by [a] network without integrity. That’s been the problem,” Friedman proclaimed in response to his host.

Tapping into his affinity for China’s disgusting system of government, Friedman called for what essentially would lead to a one-party system in the United States: to fracture off enough Republican voters to keep the “Rump Party” from getting elected to national offices.

“What I’m really focused on right now, and what is the important question is: will this party split in a way that 10 to 15 percent are hived off so the Trump Rump Party is unable to win a national election, to retake the House, to retake the Senate, let alone retake the presidency,” he mused to Cuomo. “That’s what I think is the most important question before the country. Because this party has proven it is not a governing party.”

Of course, Friedman threw out the tired smear that the Republican Party was a cult and claimed the GOP had no platform at their 2020 convention:

It’s not a governing party in two ways. One, it puts its leader, its cult leader, ahead of the constitution. And second, going back to the campaign, it had a convention in which it had no platform. It had no platform. You have to stop and think about that. Trump, all he talked about was how much he wanted to get back into power but he never really said why.

“And you really have to ask, is this a party of health care plans or conspiracy theories, of Jewish space lasers or a space program, of tearing down the Capitol or building up infrastructure,” Friedman rhetorically asked.

That last line betrayed how ridiculous and unserious Friedman really was. He suggested Republicans weren’t the party of a space program, but it was President Obama that ended manned launches in the United States and it was President Trump who brought them back.

Friedman continued to rant about it was the “most important thing for the country right now is that this version of the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump not be able to get back in power again until the party transforms itself.” Adding: “It cannot be allowed back in power again.”

This demand to kill off the Republican Party was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Coventry Direct and Simplisafe. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the dangerous content they’re funding.

The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:

CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
February 15, 2021
9:39:42 p.m. Eastern

CHRIS CUOMO: My next guest says for America to live, this party has to die. Let’s bring in New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, author of bestseller From Beirut to Jerusalem. Of course, just using the word “die” will have the whole righty fringe throwing you under the bus as the real person asking for violence.

Two have-you-evers and what do they mean? The first have-you-ever, have you ever seen somebody make a political move the way McConnell did in voting to acquit and then following it up with the exact rationale as for why he should have convicted?

TOM FRIEDMAN: Well, Chris, I think everyone has pretty well covered the fact that the hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell was as big as all outdoors.

CUOMO: With no shame, Tom. That’s what I’m saying. No shame. No shame.

FRIEDMAN: Yeah. I think that this — from the very beginning we’ve had a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by network without integrity. That’s been the problem.

What I’m really focused on right now, and what is the important question is: will this party split in a way that 10 to 15 percent are hived off so the Trump Rump Party is unable to win a national election, to retake the House, to retake the Senate, let alone retake the presidency. That’s what I think is the most important question before the country. Because this party has proven it is not a governing party.

It’s not a governing party in two ways. One, it puts its leader, it’s cult leader, ahead of the constitution. And second, going back to the campaign, it had a convention in which it had no platform. It had no platform. You have to stop and think about that. Trump, all he talked about was how much he wanted to get back into power but he never really said why.

And you really have to ask, is this a party of health care plans or conspiracy theories, of Jewish space lasers or a space program, of tearing down the Capitol or building up infrastructure?

And so, I think the most important thing for the country right now is that this version of the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump not be able to get back in power again until the party transforms itself. It’s in that sense that I think this party, as it’s presently constituted, has to turn into something else. It cannot be allowed back in power again.

(…)

FRIEDMAN: I think the most important thing right now, given where they are, Chris, is that Joe Biden succeed. He succeed in his stimulus program. He succeed in getting the vaccine out. He succeed in getting teachers vaccinated. One of your guests earlier in the night on CNN talked about that. And reviving the economy.

If Joe Biden can just keep doing what he’s doing. Wake up every day, go to the office, do his job, move this thing down the road, we’re going to be okay as a country. This thing will eventually burn itself out. But the problem with the party right now, and you see it in that letter — you know, Princess Di famously said there are three people in my marriage. And in the case of the Republican party, there are three people. There’s Trump, there’s the base, and there’s the information ecosystem led by Fox. And people are now trapped in that closed-loop. And in that closed-loop, you’re going to get those kinds of letters. The only way you break that is when the party is out of power for a long time and if Biden succeeds.

(…)